I've seen versions of this picture popping up around the internet lately, and it made me stop and think. It is not that I don't believe in right and wrong; I do. What I don't believe in are absolutes. Setting religion aside (the context in which right and wrong is often framed), the one thing that surprised me when I was studying psychology is how culturally and individually subjective right and wrong is. Our world can be so confusing that people naturally gravitate towards simplification, but the concept of right and wrong is simply too complex to be strictly dimorphic. The way we perceive the world is filtered through our society, but it is first shaped by our gender, our socioeconomic status, how safe and nurturing (or conversely, chaotic) our childhood was. Our perception of right and wrong is little more than a psychological adaptation to help us make sense of, and fit in to our environment.
When I was working with at-risk kids, trying to help them learn to make good choices, this became apparent really fast. I used to have to take one of my 9 year-old clients to get something to eat (on my own dime) before we could work on anything constructive, because a child who routinely goes to bed hungry doesn't care about making good decisions, and even less about listening to me tell him how to make the "right" choices. He cares that he's hungry, and will beg, steal, lie, and act out if he thinks it might fill his belly. My friend worked with the quietest, cute-as-a-button young woman who would, seemingly inexplicably, go home most nights and intentionally antagonize her mother until her mother would beat the hell out of her....because then she didn't have to spend the rest of the evening wondering what little thing was going to set her mother off that night, like it had every other night, for most of her whole life, and because if you're going to catch a beating anyway, you might as well get it over with. What my friend at first wrote off as the wrong choices of a 13 year old girl who was determined to be bratty and disrespectful to her mother was more accurately a young person exerting control over her life in the only way she knew how. She couldn't control whether or not her mother was going to hit her, but she could control when her mother was going to hit her. She had decided that knowing was better than not knowing, and she made the best decision for herself, in her reality, at that specific time.
It's not just at risk kids, though, because most of us have some sort of a hole in our well-being we're trying to fill. If we're lucky we get to fill it with the love of family and friends. Some people fill theirs with religion, or sex, or alcohol, or money, or hate, or whatever thing or combination of things works for them. And sometimes when they can't fill it themselves, they pass the burden of their hole onto their kids, or their spouse, or they simply fall into it and are gone. As awful as that sounds, what is amazing about our human experience and the world we all share is that everyone gets to decide what's right and wrong for themselves. The catch is, we have to live with the consequences of those decisions, but what is important here is we absolutely get to self-determine our own moral code, one that is not defined by our words, but by our actions. Because of this, people have legitimate disagreements about what's right all the time. Look no further than Republicans and Democrats (both frequently wrong, but equally convinced what they're doing is completely right) or Christians and Muslims (ditto) to illustrate my point. We don't agree across the board on what is right or wrong because right and wrong are not absolute concepts. And that's kind of a problem, because we like to act like they are. There are a lot of people running around judging what others do, vainly trying to hammer actions into preconceived, one-size-fits-all definitions of right or wrong, without ever having carried their burden, never having felt their pain, never having had to fill that hole. I've seen too much suffering, too many people who's only choice that matters is "whatever it takes for me to survive today", to say that right is right and it's black and white. We all cope in our own way. I'm under no illusion that my way is better than anyone else's. I've seen that sometimes what's right has little value to a person because it just can't get them what they need. Sometimes wrong is right (or, perhaps more accurately, most right) because a bad choice is the best choice to be had. And sometimes it doesn't even matter whether a person chooses right or wrong because they both disappear into the hole the same....
I don't want anyone to think I'm saying don't have morals or high standards. Absolutely, set the bar high, but for yourself, because the point is, right is right, and wrong is wrong, but only for you, and it doesn't really matter if everyone else is doing it, or no one else is doing it, because their circumstances and their reality are not your circumstances and your reality. If we all tried our best to remember that, we might be a little less judgmental of others, and maybe, just maybe, the world would be a little nicer place, and its people, a little more forgiving of the shortcomings of others.
I don’t think I’m actually starting a blog, (okay, technically, I am starting a blog, because I just did, but I have no current plans to continue it) as I know no one would read it except me. I just couldn’t think of another way to post this to facebook, and this is too important to me to keep to myself. So I'll make you a deal. If you read what I have to say, especially the third part, (because the important bit is towards the end), and you leave me a little note or drop me a message, I promise I will make sure you never see another marriage-equality related post from me ever again. I'll be done bothering you. Deal?
I know a lot of people have been annoyed by my support of marriage equality. I know this because eleven people I know in real life recently unfriended me on facebook. I know because some of you have taken the time to tell me not just that you disagree with me, but why, in a heartfelt and sincere way. There have even been a few hints that people don’t understand how someone with a good LDS upbringing like myself could ever support gay marriage. After all, homosexuality is not just a sin, it is an abomination before God. Well, believe it or not, I actually did pay attention in church all those years, and I do listen when my friends speak. As accurately as I can recount, there are three main arguments presented against my support of equal rights for the LGBT community. The first is that being gay is a choice. People are actively choosing to sin against God, and that’s wrong. The second is not really it’s own argument, but more of a justification of the first argument, and that is, people know that being gay is a sin because God says it is a sin, and God’s laws don’t change. While I have Christian friends who hold to this belief, they are a little bit more flexible because they often see humans as fallible in their interpretation of God’s will. In other words, there is room for debate. My LDS friends see it about the same way, except for the “room for debate” part. No matter my reasoning, the response is “GOD’S LAWS DON’T CHANGE!” Finally, the third, more cynical argument goes something like “You’re not gay (you’re not gay, are you?), so what do you care? There are other, lesser arguments against supporting marriage equality, but most of them run toward fear-mongering: Gay marriage will destroy traditional marriage! It will corrupt the children! To steal a line from Michael Shiller, “Marriage equality threatens traditional marriage in the same way abolishing slavery made freedom less enjoyable for white people.” In other words, get over that one and move on.
I would like to say up front that I don’t have a fact checker. I have tried to be as accurate as possible, but if you’re going to pick nits, I’m sure you can find something I probably got wrong somewhere. Biology is complicated, neurology even more so, and I make no claims to being either a biologist or a neurologist, and college was a long time ago. I am intelligent, though (I don’t have a humility checker, either, apparently), and I have spent more hours than I care to admit studying and pondering, so I think I get the gist of it. I also should say I absolutely respect the religious beliefs of my friends and family. Life is hard, and far be it from me to criticize whatever gets you through this miserable world every day. The truth is, I would like nothing more than to believe there is a loving, caring God looking out for us, and that something much better awaits us in the afterlife. I sometimes have a difficult time believing that, because I see a lot of evidence to the contrary, but, in all honesty, I never was very good at having faith....so maybe I just miss the big cosmic writing in the sky sometimes. I hope that’s all it is. The universe would make a lot more sense if I was simply defective. Regardless, I have spent years trying so hard not to rock the boat and fit in, but I just don’t feel like I can do that anymore and I would like to explain why:
So, first things first, part one is mostly for people who still think being gay is a choice. IF you are already enlightened, feel free to skip it. I won't even be very offended. The one thing I study a lot in psychology is how the science has changed. It used to be the driving force was finding the indivisible mental elements we all have in common, the things that make us all the same. Now, the focus is trying to understand what makes us all different, and the key ingredient in finding that understanding is the "nature/nurture" debate. How much of who we are is learned behavior (our environment), and how much is hereditary? That’s the big question, and like all things scientific, the answer is usually “it depends.”
In my opinion, the mainstream media did the entire lesbian and gay community a terrible disservice by reporting some years ago that there might be a "gay" gene. All genes really do is code for proteins, so the idea of a gene that codes for “gay” is kind of idiotic. That doesn't mean being gay is something you simply choose to be, however. Biological life is way more complicated than that. Most people believe the idea that you are born either a man or a woman, but this is sometimes incorrect. Gender is determined by two main factors: the first is chromosomes, the second is hormones. It is difficult to talk about them separately, because chromosomes interact with hormones, and hormones are key to the body’s physical development, which is the expression of a person’s chromosomal makeup.
Still, even junior high kids know two X chromosomes mean you are female and an X and a Y mean you’re male, which is part of the problem, because it isn’t that simple. Despite most people’s assumptions, not everyone who is born female has two X chromosomes, looks female, acts feminine, identifies with being a woman, has a clitoris, ovaries, vagina, and uterus, and is sexually attracted to men. Conversely, not everyone born male has one X and one Y Chromosome, is masculine, identifies as being male, has a penis, testes, and scrotum, and is sexually attracted to women. In fact, there are eight different gender variables, six of which are physical and two of which are neurological/psychological. For example, a male born with 47, XXY, commonly known as Klinefelter syndrome (approx. 1 in 500 births), has the X and Y chromosomes of a man, but also the two X chromosomes of a woman. There is a wide variety of development, but males born with this disorder will most likely become increasingly feminine as they hit puberty, including developing breasts, which, not surprising, influences the development of a sexual identity (seriously, I cannot even imagine what it would feel like to be twelve or thirteen again, with all the self-conscious awkwardness puberty entails, then starting to grow honest-to-goodness breasts?)
What if you were a male born with a faulty X chromosome? How would that effect your sexual development? A lot, as it turns out, because the X chromosome regulates Androgens (a group of male hormones classified as steroids), which is key to genital development in the womb. If you are insensitive enough to Androgen, you will be genetically male, but appear physically female. So think about this for a minute: if a person is born genetically male, but physiologically appears to be female, and they are attracted to females, does that make them a lesbian, transgender, or straight? What would straight even mean in this situation? Does it matter if they’ve been raised as a man or a woman (both happen)? If they are sexually attracted to men, does that change the answer? Can they choose which one they want to be to be, and what their sexual orientation is, or is it predetermined by biology? If they choose wrong, is that a sin, and who gets to decide if they made the right or wrong choice? Not sure? I certainly hope so, because the only definitive answer is the one I gave at the beginning, and it applies here more than anyplace else: it depends. There are simply too many variables to answer these questions with certainty. But here’s a question that can be answered: Did a person born with a faulty X chromosome that leads to Androgen intolerance and the resulting ambiguous gender and sexual identities choose to be this way, or were they born that way? Did the person born with an extra X chromosome have a choice? No, of course not. To think otherwise would be foolish.
There are also conditions known as 46, XX intersex (the chromosomes and ovaries of a woman, but the external genitalia of a man) and 46, XY intersex (male chromosomes with incompletely formed or female genitalia). People with these conditions are not true hermaphrodites, and are frequently candidates for gender reassignment surgery soon after birth. So, let’s ask, for example, if a person is born with 46, XY intersex, and they have ambiguous genitalia, are they a lesbian if they’ve been raised as a female, but like women? Remember, they are physiologically female, but genetically male. What if they feel like a man trapped in a woman’s body? Understandable, I think, because that is, indeed, an accurate description. Is this person mentally ill? An abomination before God? Did the doctor just cut off the wrong bits during gender assignment surgery? Confusing, isn’t it? But wait, we’re not done yet.
Besides chromosomes, there are also different types of hormones. Some influence male development, such as testosterone, and some female, such as estrogen (even if you are female, you still have male hormones, and vice-versa). Last I checked, there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 62 different human hormones (assuming I can still count, which is debatable), although new ones are frequently discovered, so my list might be dated already. There are nine different categories of sex hormones alone. The point is, there’s a lot. A developing fetus is literally swimming in hormone soup, and this soup is extremely important to the development of a fetus, because hormones are the body’s messengers. They have to deliver the right messages at the right times, and at the right, properly functioning receptors, in volume. As you can imagine with a process this complex, that doesn’t always happen the right way. A message not arriving at the right receptor, or at the wrong time, can mean something doesn’t develop that should. A message arriving in the wrong place can mean something develops in a way different than was intended. When things go wrong on a large enough scale, it can lead to birth defects and miscarriages. It can also lead to changes in brain chemistry and brain development (one of the reasons we’re all unique), and especially with sex hormones, the massive possibilities for variation certainly influence the development of gender identity and sexual attraction. In much the same way as a genetically male body can physiologically appear to be female, a womb with an imbalance of hormones, say an excess of female hormones, can lead to a male body, but a brain that is oriented towards being female. Scientists are sure this happens, even though no one really knows exactly how frequently it occurs. The balance of chemicals in the brain is quite delicate, though, so it is really not surprising that the more thoroughly the brain is studied, the more commonplace chemical imbalances are believed to be. A brain could have too much of one hormone, or not enough of another, or all the right hormones but receptors that don’t work right, or simply not enough of a certain type of receptors to begin with, and the result is divergent brain function.
Once the body is formed, it cannot be fundamentally changed. Many parents believe raising children is so taxing, they need an extra set of arms, and eyes in the back of their head. No matter how beneficial this may be, or how much a person may wish it to be, no one believes a person can grow an extra pair of limbs. If a person loses an arm and a leg recreating the ‘tis just a flesh wound scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, they cannot simply regenerate those limbs once they realize they have made a horrible, yet awesomely epic mistake. No one needs this explained to them. But many people do not realize the exact same principle applies to the human brain. Of course, the brain is still developing after we are born. It makes physical connection after physical connection in response to every new stimulus a young child experiences (and when a child is very young, everything is a new experience). The possibilities for an infant’s development is near infinite. But it is true that humans are creatures of habit; once people settle in to a routine, every experience isn’t new anymore, and the brain ruthlessly cuts all those connections that aren’t being used. By the time a person reaches adult hood, the physiology of the brain is set. And while the brain can benefit from “exercise,” just like the body, or grow frail with age, it is fully formed, and will remain fundamentally unchanged.
When we, as a society, choose to medicate people who have depression, or anxiety, or are angry all the time, or who can’t sit still or pay attention, we are acknowledging the fact that sometimes people’s brains work differently. If someone killed themselves because they called a suicide hotline, and the operator told them they were choosing to be depressed, that they could simply choose to be happy if they really wanted to, the outrage would be instantaneous and widespread. And yet religion tells gay people exactly the same thing: being gay is a lifestyle choice, and you could be straight if you wanted to. There is simply no evidence this is true. People who say “I feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body,” or “I know I’m a man, but I am simply not attracted to women” are not just making things up. They are not mentally ill. Their brains simply developed differently than yours or mine.
I have only mostly talked about transgender people, because science understands the biology better, and the examples are easier to see because the differences are more clear cut. I did this to explain that gender is not an either-or proposition. It is a spectrum, with manly-men at one extreme and girly-girls at the other. But there are lots of things in between, including me, a slightly less-manly man. Everyone knows a few hard-core tomboys or an effeminate man. Most everyone knows someone who seems a little confused about their gender identity. There are people who are bisexual, gays and lesbians, people who are transgender, and right in the middle, although rare, are true hermaphrodites. The point is, there are fewer people hanging out at the extremes of both ends than one might realize, because human beings have legitimate, measurable physiological differences. Human sexuality is no different. It is a spectrum, and with the development of fMRI, neurologists can now observe that people’s brains do function differently based on their gender identity and sexual preference. Differences in brain function can be mapped and quantified, and there are differences. There are not simply men who are attracted to women, and women who are attracted to men, straight people who find any other configuration repulsive. There is a whole spectrum of human sexual reality. Some men and women have a gender identity that does not match their physical body, and they choose to define their sexuality through the context of that identity rather than what genitalia they were born with. They may even have gender reassignment surgery so the mental and the physical more closely match (transgender). Some men and women are only attracted to their own sex, and may be physiologically and/or psychologically repulsed by the idea of having intimate relations with members of the opposite sex (gay and lesbian). There are men and women who are physically attracted to both sexes (bisexual). There are men and women who are primarily attracted to members of the opposite sex, but still feel some attraction to their own sex (bi-curious). There are otherwise straight men who watch My Little Pony and write fan fiction about it (Bronies), and everything anyone could imagine in between.
That’s not to say that a person’s environment has no bearing on their sexual identity, just not in the way many people think. Growing up with two dads or two moms doesn’t make a child a single bit more likely to be gay, for example. In a societal and developmental context, being exposed to gay people and gay culture, does not “corrupt” the development of straight children. As a matter of fact, frank, informed, factual, age appropriate discussions about sex help children become sexually healthy and responsible young adults. And just because some things, like having gay parents, don’t influence sexual development, does not mean we shouldn’t protect our children from being exposed to their sexuality before they are ready to deal with it, or let them be exposed in a way that is confusing or misleading. Age of initial sexual experiences is believed by some researchers to be an influencing factor in human sexual development. There is some evidence from case studies and self reports that children who engage in sexual activities before the onset of puberty may demonstrate an increased preference for same-sex partners (I know I thought girls were icky when I was eight), especially when a child is left to process often complex and confusing sexual experiences and the myriad emotions (equally complex, confusing, and even contradictory) that go with those experiences. There isn't universal agreement that this is the case, and self-reports and case studies only provide correlating evidence and not causation anyway (as do most things in psychology, honestly), but learning how people felt about their sexuality as they were maturing leads to understanding of sexual roles as an adult, and what part environment (the nurture part of the nature/nurture argument) had in that development.
Most people don’t realize how little control their conscious mind actually has over their choices. Personalities are buried in the sub-conscious mind, where the deep processing occurs. Psychologists know a lot less about the sub-conscious than they’d like to admit, but they know it is powerful, and once it is fully formed, it isn’t easy to alter. In fact, some psychologists believe it is impossible, and that free will is simply an illusion (I don’t subscribe to that view, but I can’t make an air-tight argument against it, either). Gender roles and sexual preferences may be somewhat malleable at first, but become ingrained at a very early age. They don’t change; it just takes some people longer to sort everything out than it does others. Emotional development, attachment styles, and personality typed are much the same. Overcoming or mitigating the flaws we each see in ourselves can happen, but it takes time, usually measured in years, because those traits are so ingrained. And not that this has anything to do with anything, but just so there is absolutely no confusion about the potential for change– no, reparative therapy, otherwise known as gay conversion therapy, does not work, both because it is a sham “therapy” not in any way, shape or form based in any discipline of science (it actually has the potential to grievously harm normal sexual expression), and also because LGBT people are not simply sexually confused people tempted into making wrong choices. I know that might sound a little harsh, but I cannot express strongly enough that a person struggling with the socio-religious impact of homosexuality, even if they desire to be straight more than anything in the whole world, cannot, on any level, “pray the gay away,” any more successfully than I can pray to grow eyes in the back of my head.
To sum up, human sexuality is a complicated, hard-to-pin-down amalgam of genetic information from both the mother and father and whether it has combined properly or not, levels of hormones present in the womb, development of the fetus, brain chemistry, the society you’re born into, and your environment (human interaction, relationships, school, other data input such as media, art, music, so on and so forth). If you still think there is room for a whole lot of choice in that tangled mess, I’m too tired to argue with you, but that doesn’t mean you’re not still wrong. If you are one of those arrow-straight heterosexuals who find even the thought of homosexuality to be completely unappealing, and you still think being gay is a choice, I have an experiment for you. Do it. Get up from your computer, or wherever you are, and go have gay sex. Right now, I’ll wait. And just so you can’t argue that you can’t go have gay sex because it’s a sin, I am willing to make a deal with God, at this very moment, in print, for him to put whatever sin you might incur during the course of this experiment on my spiritual tab, payable in full by me on judgement day, so congratulations, you are free and clear to proceed. And if you still can’t bring yourself to go have gay sex, even with a get-out-of-hell free card, or if you’re just such a loser that no one will have sex with you (just joking, there’s probably no such thing. I know, because I’m a giant loser and I’ve had sex– counting the kids–at least three times), not even gay sex, then just contemplate having gay sex. I’ll leave the graphic details up to your own imagination, but just think really hard about under what circumstances you would willingly choose to have gay sex. Did you come up with any? If your answer was yes, then go and see your bishop, priest, or other religious leader immediately, because you have some issues to work out that may impact your spiritual worthiness even after this experiment is over. If your answer was no, you couldn’t think up even one single circumstance in which you would willingly change your sexual orientation, even for a time short enough to have gay sex, you now know how gay, lesbian, and bi-sexual people feel about their own sexual orientation, because they didn’t choose to be gay any more than you chose to be straight.
The point is, human physiology and psychology are incredibly complex because so are the human body and the human mind. I studied almost nothing but psychology for two years while obtaining my bachelor’s degree (and I mean really studied, not just that I showed up for class), and I understand one-tenth of one percent of all the things there are to know about the make-up of the human psyche if I’m lucky. I know even less about physiology. The sad part is, unless you are a health care professional of some sort, I probably know more about either than you do. So when people say they know being gay is a choice, pardon me for being disagreeable, but honestly, they know no such thing. They simply have a bias towards a belief, which is either being parroted back, frequently unprocessed, from the teachings of their religion, or because they have formed a premature opinion based on an incomplete or incorrect understanding of how human sexuality actually develops....and speaking of incomplete or incorrect understanding, if you think I’m wrong, or I said things that confused you or that don’t make sense, read about it for yourself. There are so many resources available at the tip of our fingertips, literally, that there is no reason not to know something, not to understand. I’m sure there are literally hundreds of sources of information that deal with this subject more clearly and precisely than I just did, and like the old PSA slogan goes, “The more you know . . .”
~oOo~ TWO ~oOo~
This brings me to the second argument against tolerating gay people and supporting gay marriage, that God’s law doesn’t change: I can’t argue against someone who says “this is just my opinion” and means it. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and I actually enjoy discussing important issues, even with people who completely disagree with me (which, I’ll admit, may sound like arguing to the uninitiated), because that is how I form viable opinions. My opinion on any given issue don’t just fall out of the sky and hit me in the head – I have thought about it, then thought about it some more, and sometimes I even change my opinion as a result. But some things are not opinions. Some things are facts, and facts you have a duty to get right, or the universe is obligated to mock you until you realize your mistake (trust me, I have first hand experience with being mocked by the universe). Because I have only moderate experience with Christian religions outside of the LDS church, and because many other Christian religions have at least some room for debate, I don’t feel the need or have the knowledge necessary to argue either for or against what other churches believe. I want to reiterate, in the clearest terms possible, that if you are LDS and content in your religious beliefs, I am honestly and sincerely happy you have found meaning to your life. I have no desire to corrupt your belief, or cause you to question your faith. However, there is only one way to show people, those who think they have an irrefutable argument against homosexuality, that God’s laws, as currently believed by the faithful of the LDS church, do in fact change, and that is with an example. “Prove it!” is a completely reasonable request in my book, so here goes. There are other examples, but I’ll give you the most applicable one, because, well, it is the most applicable example. Besides, all it should take is one example, right? No one ever tried to convince me I was wrong about supporting marriage equality by arguing “God’s laws don’t change except that one time when he said, ‘Yeah I guess I might have made gay people and then forgot, so oops, time for a slight revision to the law of marriage, because, y’know, they are my children after all’.” If that had been the argument, I wouldn’t feel the need to be writing this.
The example I would choose to make my point is the LDS churches position on interracial marriage. But first, I need to address a response to one of my marriage equality posts, about the legalization of same-sex marriage in Uruguay, made after I was done writing this part (and which I am now rewriting), because it applies here. I have not asked permission to include this person’s opinion, because I consider anything written on my wall to be the gift of knowledge, freely and lovingly given to me by my friends, to do with as I see fit, and intended for all to see. I do respect my friends’ privacy, though, so if my friend had sent me a message or instant-messaged me instead, as other people have done, I would not be sharing this. Anyway, here is the pertinent part of the reply:
“Wickedness never was happiness” There is a big difference between having same sex attraction issues and acting on those feelings. What is wrong is always wrong regardless of how many years go by.... Interracial marriage has been discouraged because it is a potential stumbling block for not only for the parents but also the children, not because it was wrong.... The laws of God never change.
I’ll discuss the other assertions after my example, but the apologist defense (an apologist is just someone who defends the church, such as my friend) that interracial marriage was only ever “discouraged” because it was a “stumbling block” and not because it was wrong needs to be nipped in the bud. This defense suggests that the LDS church never prohibited interracial marriage as official church policy. Therefore God’s law on interracial marriage did not change, because it was simply a suggestion to make member’s lives easier. There are dozens of excellent passages on the subject, all from official church sources, but I chose three, all from prophets, so there can be no mistaking the authority of the messages. In my experience, LDS people in general are, unfortunately, woefully ignorant of their own history (I don’t know why. I love church history). As such, it may come as a surprise to some that interracial marriage wasn’t simply frowned upon by the church; it was a sin, and a serious one as well, no matter how many people believe differently now.
It was not so very long ago (certainly not in God's reckoning of time) that the Prophet Joseph Smith said the following, regarding interracial marriage:
“Had I anything to do with the negro, I would confine them by strict law to their own species...”
Not so harsh, perhaps, for his day (1845), but still, Joseph Smith is the founder of the LDS church, and I thought it was important to include his thoughts on the subject, because anything he says carries a lot of weight. A few years later, however, Prophet Brigham Young very specifically shared God’s law on the subject, in no uncertain terms:
“Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.”
Over a hundred years after Joseph Smith’s remarks, Prophet George Albert Smith confirmed the churches position of interracial marriage had not changed, in a First Presidency letter to former BYU sociology department head, Dr. Lowery Nelson:
“Your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and white races, a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs until now....there is a growing tendency, particularly among some educators, as it manifests itself in this area, toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.”
Now if you think this is God's law, as Brigham Young said, and should have never changed, then I’m sorry, but I have NO respect for that position. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and George Albert Smith may or may not have known better then, but we certainly know better now. Views such as these are racist and indefensible in our modern day and age. Luckily, that is not what most Mormons believe, even though Brigham Young clearly states God’s law prohibits not just interracial relationships, but that it will never change, and the penalty is literally physical death. I don’t think there is any ambiguity there, but some apologists have argued Brigham Young was talking about white slave owners “mistreating” their female black slaves. I have read the whole passage, and that was certainly not what he meant. The context is quite clear, but don’t take my word for it, go read it yourself. Regardless, there is other evidence the church viewed President Young’s words as I described them, even years later. In 1967, John D. Lund, in a mainstream LDS book specifically aimed at defending the churches position on blacks and the priesthood, wrote the following words immediately following the inclusion of Brigham Young’s quote: “God has commanded Israel not to intermarry. To go against this commandment of God would be to sin. Those who willfully sin with their eyes open to this wrong will not be surprised to find that they will be separated from the presence of God in the world to come. This is spiritual death.... It does not matter if they are one-sixth Negro or one-one hundred and sixth, the curse of no Priesthood is still the same.... To intermarry with a Negro is to forfeit a ‘Nation of Priesthood holders’.” Now, I know Elder Lund is not a prophet or apostle, but he was employed by the church for years, and he goes into agonizing detail in documenting his sources. There is no way the church approved this book for publication without it being an accurate depiction of church doctrine at the time. Elder Lund is not “shooting from the hip.” The church absolutely believed a white (blessed) person intermarrying with someone, not even just black, but who possessed even the slightest African ancestry, was a sin so serious, the punishment was spiritual death, being barred from the presence of God in the afterlife. This is not meant to be helpful advice from the church. It is an “or else” statement of doctrine if ever there was one.
The quote from George Albert Smith is even more interesting, because if you substitute same-sex marriage and sexual orientation for every mention of interracial marriage and race, his quote would convey the church’s current position on same sex marriage, almost exactly:
“Your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the same-sex marriage of gays and lesbians, a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs until now....there is a growing tendency, particularly among some educators, as it manifests itself in this area, toward the breaking down of moral barriers in the matter of same-sex marriages, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.”
It is hard to voice opposition in more uncertain terms than the prophet did to Dr. Nelson: I have no idea why you have even suggested this, because not only is it against church doctrine, but if you were any kind of a normal person, you would find the very idea repugnant. Ouch! So please don’t tell me any church leaders viewed interracial marriage before 1978 any differently than they view same sex marriage now. They didn’t. Any statement to the contrary is simply revisionist history. Both prohibitions were viewed as God’s laws, as official church doctrine, as sins to be avoided at any cost. The only difference is, one changed. Changed for the better, but changed nonetheless. So what does that mean? Well, there are only two choices as far as I can tell (and I’ve tried to think of this from every angle, so if you think I missed something significant, let me know. I would love to hear your perspective). Either God's laws change as we are ready for them, or a basic tenet of the church isn't true (because if God’s law doesn’t change, then who is wrong, every prophet who came before Spencer W. Kimball, or him and every prophet who has come after? There is no right answer if you are a faithful Mormon). I doubt most LDS people could choose between the two options, because both are unpleasant, so I’ll be nice and won’t ask.
The LDS church, for over a hundred years, collectively held a belief, and had a policy in place, that not a single member of the church, including the prophet, could affirm from a pulpit now under any circumstances. The church viewed interracial marriage as a sin in the eyes of God because it was against the natural order as they understood it, which is no different than how the church views same-sex marriage now. The only difference is the justification (God cursed black people, but that eventually didn’t work out so well from a P.R. standpoint, so this time he didn’t have anything at all to do with gay people. It’s safer that way). So whether you believe that the church changed one day in 1978 because God gave Spencer W. Kimball a revelation, or because the church had decided to build a new temple in São Paulo, Brazil without realizing practically everyone in Brazil has at least a little African blood in them, or because the U.S. Government was working to remove tax exempt status from churches who still discriminated against blacks, or even some combination of the three, the “why” doesn’t really matter for my argument. All that matters is change came on blacks holding the priesthood, and by extension, interracial marriage, and as incomprehensible as it is now to most Mormons, the church will change on same-sex marriage, too. They will. It is inevitable, if for no other reason than the fear of being marginalized. The church as a whole desires acceptance as a mainstream religion, and an untold number of dollars have been spent on public relation campaigns to position themselves just that way. Meanwhile, overall support for same-sex marriage increases every year at a steady rate. That is not going to change in the foreseeable future, because a large portion of those opposed to same sex marriage are elderly. As the old generation dies off, it is being replaced by a younger generation that does not share their views on marriage. Eventually, there will be enough support that an elected president feels he or she has a mandate to uphold the 10th amendment to the constitution and provide equal protection for all. Much the same as in the civil rights era, the movement will gain critical mass, bringing increased pressure from both the government and the populace at large to exact change. Global church or not, the LDS church can ill-afford to be seen as that out of touch with the rest of the country it is based in and continue to grow. The church’s record growth has already slowed tremendously in the past 20 years, and more damaging, it is not retaining that growth: the membership is easily made up of more inactive members than active, and it will soon be a 2-to-1 ratio if current trends continue. It is no secret the LDS faith has struggles in recent times to attract and hold young members, and those under the age of 30 already support gay marriage at an astonishing 81% rate. The support for gay marriage is not going to change, so if the church wants to attract new young members, it will have to change instead. There is no other option for continued growth. So whether the members believe the change comes from social pressure or a direct revelation from God, change will come again. It won’t come soon (being relative of course, because the seeds are already planted, and will be here much sooner than most members think, which is never), but it will come, and when it does, people won’t leave the church en mass. They won’t even be shocked, because they will have had years to get used to the idea, and it won’t feel revolutionary any more. In fact, it will feel past due.
I know most every Mormon who read that just disagreed with me, but if I told church members in 1938 that in just 40 short years, blacks would be able to hold the priesthood and even marry white people, they wouldn’t have believed me either. I feel confident predicting the future, because I’ve carefully studied the past, something the church still struggles to do – it is hard to learn from history when it has been sanitized for your own protection (“Some things that are true are not very helpful” ~ Boyd K. Packer – think about that quote objectively for long enough, and you might see my point. The truth is always helpful. It is just not always pleasant), so it is making the same mistake, over again.
~oOo~ THREE ~oOo~
Finally, the third argument: You’re not gay, so why do you care?
No, I am not gay, not even a little bit. But I have LGBT friends, and I have LGBT family. They are important to me, so their happiness is important to me. While no two relationships are the same, I have seen that their relationships are not “temporary and empty,” based only in sin and sexual gratification. Does that exist? Certainly, but I have seen even more of it in the mockery society has made of its own heterosexual relationships. No, what I see more often than not are loving, committed relationships, little different than what my wife and I aspire to. Maybe I just know some awesome gay people (I do, in fact), and that has clouded my perception, but I doubt it. Besides, that’s not the only reason I care.
I’ve said before, it often takes a profound experience to change a deeply held belief, and that is true. Sometimes, though, it takes a profound experiences to create a belief in the first place. And much like miracles, profound experiences are often not earth-shattering pyrotechnic displays, but small things, drawn from everyday life. What may seem as a great miracle to one may go unnoticed by another. What is to me, a deeply profound, precious moment from my life might seem like nothing to you, if you weren’t there to live it with me. So if you read this and feel I’ve wasted your time, I apologize, but this story changed the way I view the world, and it means something to me.
When I was still going to college, I took a class titled Anatomy of the Brain, the most difficult non-math class I’ve ever encountered. I used to come home and talk to my kids about what I’d learned, because phrasing things in simple terms my kids could understand helped me remember the whole jumbled mess better. When we were studying sexual identity and divergent brain development, I tried to explain to my older son what that was. Because I did not have an adequate grasp on the material, I didn’t do a very good job. I got to a point where I needed him to understand the difference between correlation and causation. For example, there is a correlation between the length of your ring finger and your athletic ability. It is really not surprising that on average, short, stubby people have less athletic ability than tall, lanky people, but having a long ring finger does not cause you to have more athletic ability. There is also a U.C. Berkley study that shows a correlation between the length of your index finger and your sexual identity (because higher levels of androgen in the womb influence both finger length and sexual orientation). For reasons I’ve never understood, the correlation only applies if you have a couple of older brothers, but having an index finger shorter than your ring finger does indeed correlate with (but doesn't cause) same-sex attraction in men. I have a short index finger, but I never worried about it because 1) I don’t have any older brothers, and 2) I am already 100% certain I am not gay....but I am certain I’m stupid, because my younger son, who is curious (i.e. nosey) and listens to everything, quickly realized he had the same short index finger he inherited from his dad, and he does have two older brothers. Being eight or nine at the time, he had not understood the “correlation does not mean causation” part, however, so he decided he must be gay. He “knew” it was a bad thing, too, because “You faggot!” is about the meanest thing children can yell at each other. My son’s anxiety kicked in immediately, and he started punching himself in the head, repeatedly and with force. I couldn’t grab him fast enough or hug him tight enough to stop the damage I had just unwittingly done to my sweet child (I literally could not type that last sentence without tears forming in my eyes and rolling down my cheeks, and over two years have passed). In that split second I reached for my son, I had to decide what I was going to say to comfort him. It had to be completely honest, too, because Colten always seems to know when I’m blowing smoke just to make him feel better. I had to decide, on the spot, having never even honestly considered it before, if it would make one single, damned bit of difference to me if any of my children were gay. Would I love them any less, or feel any differently about them? The answer was no, of course not. I didn’t even have to think about it. I just knew. I knew I would still want them to grow up, find someone to love, share their life with, someone to get married to, even, if that was their choice, but I would certainly want that choice to be available to them. In short, I would want them to be honestly happy: honest in who they are, and happy because of it. What loving parent could not want that for their children? So I told Colten the truth. Even though he is not gay (I know, because he told me at least 40 times, in his most serious tone of voice, trying out every single inflection his little-boy brain could think of to emphasize his point), it would make no difference to me if he was. None. I would love him forever, and nothing could ever change that, because I love him unconditionally. I poured every ounce of my love for him into those words, so they would heal his broken heart. And guess what? It didn’t work. As badly as I wanted to make my son feel better, he was too crushed.
Later on, when his mother came home, he told her what had happened, carefully making sure I wasn’t around to defend myself. And after his mother listened, after she gave him the same answer I already had, expressed the exact same sentiment that she, that we, will always love him, no matter what, he finally believed. Trust, but verify....not bad advice for any of us. Colten has since recovered from my stupidity, but he is still sensitive to being labeled, regardless of what that label is. I make extra efforts to reaffirm how special he is to me, and how lucky I am to have him in my life. And as a result of my experience, I now voraciously support marriage equality, not because I have the guilty conscience of a failed parent, but because I learn from my mistakes, and because no human being should ever have to live with the genuine anguish I saw in my son that day, not for eighty years, not for eighty seconds, not if I can help it. Every fiber of my being tells me this is the only moral conclusion. A majority of people in this county already share this view, but many of our nation’s leaders, along with the LDS church, do not see it that way yet. As long as homosexuality is mistakenly seen as a choice, nothing will change, because we put that impossibly heavy burden on the backs of the LGBT community. It is easier to believe gay people should change, or at the very least, they should choose not to sin, even if it means giving up every hope for earthy happiness, even though it is us who have denied them the vehicle to validate their relationships. Well, I remember a hymn that asked the question “Has anyone’s burden been lighter today, because I was willing to share?” The admonishment comes in the chorus “Then wake up and do something more.” It is good advice. What if we all woke up and helped lighten that burden? What if we were part of the solution instead of part of the problem, and wouldn’t that be amazing? I would want to live in that world.
The LDS church has softened some in recent years, in no small part because faithful members, especially those with LGBT children, were vocal about their concerns, a rarity in the church these days. And church leaders certainly tell the members not to judge, they tell parents to love their gay child, though in the very next breath they would deny that same child the close relationship you can have only by committing to another person 100%, the affection found only in physical companionship, the joy of growing old together with the person you’ve chosen to spend your life with, because those things are sins if you grow up to be gay. These children are put in the very difficult position of choosing between their earthy happiness and the church they grew up in. And make no mistake, it is incredibly difficult for many people to abandon the religion they were raised in, even if that same church would deny them the most basic of human rights, the most basic of human dignities, because church leaders believe it is the child’s choice to "sin". That is a belief I not only cannot defend, but honestly, cannot even fathom. So I don’t defend it, and if that offends you, then I am truly sorry, but only for this: I am sorry if you have to live in darkness and fear, but out of ignorance, think it is love. I am sorry that because of that ignorance, good people have to live as second-class citizens. I am sorry that change won’t come soon enough, because today is already too late for so many. I am sorry that the rejection of children by their families, by their religion, causes the deepest kind of hurt, and a longing to be accepted for who they are, who they really and truly are, as glorious beings made from the stuff of stars, worthy of our love and respect and admiration, a longing that never goes away. But I am not sorry for what I believe, even if it has already cost me eleven “friends,” even if it costs me eleven more (honestly, I doubt I have that many left), because I can defend my position for eternity from the safety of the moral high ground, and I can live with that.
Being truly empathetic, seeing with the eyes of another, without judging, especially when reaching that understanding requires personal growth, is never easy. But we weren’t put on this earth because life would be easy. We were put here to learn and grow, to love one another, and to be happy. But life is short. I can’t afford to wait, and whether you know it or not, neither can you.
~oOo~
If you made it to the end of this overgrown blog, you deserve a medal, so here it is:
Sorry, I'm unemployed. It was all I could afford ;-)
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